Rhine City, the capital of Aaron Country, is the western gold capital and steel capital of the Alliance, and the undisputed number one magic city in the Natural Alliance.

Lion Castle, the family castle of the Danger royal family, was built 700 years ago.

After several renovations and expansions, it now covers an area of ​​over 200,000 acres, making it a city within a city in the national capital.

It is also the center of Aaron's politics, economy, magic, and even military.

At this moment, the owner of the Lion Castle, the current Lion King Dange XXIX, was sitting lazily on the golden throne in the Hall of Heroes, accepting audiences from the envoys.

These envoys come from all over the world in the continent of Witt.

There are kingdoms and duchies within the Natural Alliance, as well as those from the Glorious Empire and its surrounding allies, and even from the more distant west, a magnificent capital known as the Holy Elf Empire.

The Holy Elf Empire is very, very far away, at least eight thousand kilometers away from Aaron, and the land is blocked by deserts, mountains, and swamps.

Moreover, there was the Glorious Empire blocking not only the land route but also the sea route, which made Dange, who was determined to open up new trade markets, very unhappy.

Of course, these are strategic issues and cannot be resolved overnight.

Listening to the respectful and humble speeches of the envoys below, Dange felt bored because he was tired of such flattery.

After finally getting through this boring time, Danger stretched his back and lazily sighed, "Another boring day."

He stood up, left the magnificent Hall of Heroes, turned and walked towards the martial arts training ground behind the hall.

As the Lion King, he certainly knew the extraordinary uses of magic, but personally, he was fond of fighting spirit and martial arts.

In the cultivation of fighting spirit, he has also made great achievements. Not only does he have superb martial arts skills, but the strength of his fighting spirit has also reached the peak of the fourth ring, which makes his body very strong.

When he arrived at the martial arts training ground, he picked up a spear made of krypton gold and started to play with it with great concentration.

Just as he was concentrating on his practice, an elderly voice suddenly came from not far away:

"Your Majesty, I think you spend too much time on practicing your personal martial arts."

Dange didn't say anything, nor did he stop practicing. He was sweating profusely.

"Battle Qi is just a kind of magic energy. If your majesty needs it, I can stabilize the battle Qi at the peak of the fifth ring for you."

Dange became annoyed after hearing this, and thrust his spear forward, pointing the tip of the spear at the old man at the edge of the martial arts training ground.

"Sanchester, why do you always like to disturb me at times like this? Do you really think I won't stick a gun into your chattering mouth?"

The king with dark blond curly hair and pure green eyes looked annoyed.

The old man who was pointed at by the spear looked to be about fifty years old, short and thin, with a bald head and white hair, but he had a pair of extremely sharp ice-blue eyes.

He is one of the guardian sages of the Aaron royal family, with the fifth ring of peak magic power, 'Eye of the Storm' Sanchester.

He ignored the spear in the king's hand and whispered, "Your Majesty, the storm at sea tells me that something very important will happen today."

"So let me remind you."

Dange's anger had mostly dissipated. He took off his sweaty clothes, took the dry cashmere cloth handed to him by the servant, and carefully wiped the sweat off his body.

As he moved, his bulging muscles became more and more shiny.

He wiped it very carefully, and only changed into dry new clothes after he was sure it was clean. "What could be the big deal? Or is there another island baron who shows up to snatch my woman?"

To be honest, this incident did make him very angry, but the Duke of Dawn gave him a huge compensation afterwards. At that time, he was busy sending reinforcements to the Giant Fortress and did not want to encounter too many unexpected troubles, so he temporarily endured it.

But this matter must be resolved eventually, just waiting for him to free up his hands.

Sanchester shrugged. "Your Majesty, generally speaking, it takes at least a year for Princess Chenxi to give birth. Now it's only been more than half a year, so you still have a chance."

Danger sneered, "I'm not interested in widows."

"But the widow's dowry is Veran, isn't it?"

"Well, this is a very tempting dowry, but let's not talk about that willful girl for now. The gardener next door has been a little dishonest recently and seems to be preparing some plans that are harmful to us."

"Perhaps the sage should calculate this matter."

Sanchester nodded: "I will. Important news has arrived. I just want to hear it. Your Majesty, will you think I am in the way?"

"You can listen if you want."

Dange sat down on a bench in the training ground and waited for the messenger to come.

After a while, the messenger arrived.

It turned out to be the telepathic communication mage who was specifically responsible for communicating with Weilan.

Dange felt his eyelids twitch slightly: "Weilan has been a bit busy in the past year."

When the messenger arrived, Sage Sanchester waved his arm and immediately summoned a five-ring storm barrier, trapping the three people inside.

"Now, speak up."

The messenger mage immediately said, "Your Majesty, Weilan has had several major incidents in succession."

"Tell me one by one."

The messenger mage immediately said, "In the past two and a half months, Baron of White Sturgeon Island sold a large number of pearl ornaments to all of Weilan and earned at least 5 million Oger's gold coins."

Dange had vaguely heard about the pearl jewelry, but he didn't take it seriously at the time. After all, he was very busy. He didn't expect that the matter would become so big.

"Is Ryder a dead man? And a small baron robbed him of such a large sum of money?"

After saying this, anger emerged in his heart.

Because the baron appeared in the news again, and this baron made him very unhappy.

The messenger mage continued, "After the Duke of Dawn noticed this, he immediately summoned the First Storm Fleet to the north to recover the gold coins."

"That's more like it, then what?"

"The First Storm Fleet encountered the Black Stone gunboats of Baron White Sand Island and was almost completely wiped out. Of the nearly 7,000 soldiers, it is said that less than 1,500 were left."

"What?"

Danger was sitting in a chair and listening. He stood up and said, "Black Stone Gunship? What the hell is this? How can it be so powerful?"

"According to the news, it is a new type of warship powered by burning black stone and equipped with a magical weapon called 'cannon'. By the way, this cannon is very similar to the flaming thunder weapon that is being researched."

When Dange heard this, he couldn't help but look at Sanchester beside him, and he also saw surprise in the eyes of this sage.

"How can a mere baron get so many new things?!"

The summoning mage then went on to talk about the third thing.

Without waiting for the king to ask, the messenger mage told him the most important news.

"The reason why the Earl of Northern County is so confident is that the Baron of White Sturgeon Island has developed a deep-sea route to Levender. It is said that it only takes 10 days to reach Levender!"

Dange clenched his fists when he heard this. A rage was burning fiercely in his heart, almost bursting out of his throat.

"Okay~~Okay~~~This little baron is really amazing!"

"Without making any noise, he actually caused so much trouble. Not only did he steal my woman, but now he's even trying to steal Weilan from me!"

Dange's teeth were chattering, as if he wanted to capture the Baron of White Sturgeon Island who was thousands of miles away and eat his flesh and blood raw.

After a while, he suppressed his anger a little and asked, "Anything else?"

The communication mage shook his head: "That's all for now."

"very good!"

Danger waved to the communication mage: "Continue to investigate Weilan's situation, and report to me immediately if you have any news!"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The summons mage retreated, and Danger turned to look at Sanchester.

"Sage, the Baron must die!"

Sanchester showed a hint of hesitation on his face: "The blessing of the wise Levin should not be taken lightly."

Danger was furious: "Then let's do our best to capture the sage, and then bring the Baron and Princess Dawn alive. We can test them one by one, and we will eventually find a way to crack it!"

"That is indeed a solution. But what is Your Majesty going to do? Order the Lion Fifth Fleet to head north?"

The Lion's Fifth Fleet is specifically designed to intimidate Vilan. It has 10 2,500-ton Lionheart ships, 10 1,500-ton Lionheart ships, and a total of 40 other warships of various sizes.

And half of them have been equipped with flaming thunder magic weapons.

"No?"

"Our fleet consists of sailing warships, and the Black Stone warships are not yet mature and are no match for the new warships."

"We can certainly win by numbers, but we will certainly suffer heavy losses, and our opponents are many and strong, far more than just a small baron."

This made Danger calm down a lot, and at the same time he felt very strange: "Where did this little baron's Black Stone battleship come from?"

“Since he opened up Levender’s deep sea route, it’s very likely Levender’s.”

It is impossible for a small island to come up with such a new thing because it has neither resources nor people.

This is common sense.

Therefore, the only option is external assistance, and in the entire Natural Alliance, only three kingdoms are capable of doing this.

Now that a new route has been opened, it is natural that Levender will provide assistance.

The sage's speculation was like a pour of ice water on Danger, making him calmer.

"That is to say, Levender has already mastered the mature Black Stone warships and even gave them to the Baron of White Sturgeon Island. No, not giving them to him, but secretly stationing troops on White Sturgeon Island!"

"The new route only takes 10 days, and using new warships, it will take even less time. In other words, the Levender warship will arrive in the north of Veran even faster than us!"

"Hiss~~~"

Danger took a deep breath, "So, the Baron is just a tool, and our real opponent is the little king of Levender?"

Sage Sanchester nodded slowly: "This should be the most likely scenario."

Dange slowly sat back in his chair again: "I underestimated this little king. He is much more difficult to deal with than I thought."

The more he thought about it, the more difficult it became.

The biggest reason was that Aaron's technology in warships was far behind, and the seriousness of this matter was far greater than that of an arrogant and reckless little baron.

After a long silence, he said softly: "We are behind, but I will never allow Weilan to become Levender's back garden. At least the southern part of Weilan must belong to Aaron!"

Since the North is guarded by Levinder's Black Stone battleships and Thunder Magical Weapons, he naturally cannot let the Lion Fleet sacrifice in vain before he builds the same Black Stone battleships.

But Vilan is only a few hundred kilometers south of Aaron, and their Lion Fleet still has a huge advantage.

After a pause, he said, "Since we can't win the battle at sea for now, we should take a defensive stance at sea. We will fight Levender on land."

He wanted to send more troops to Dawn City and Chaonan County to support Duke Dawn in the civil war! Aaron's Blackstone battleship also needed to invest huge amounts of money in research, striving to build a usable Blackstone battleship in the shortest possible time.

Even if the technology is not mature, we should build it quickly. It is better than having nothing at all.

For a moment, Dange's mind was filled with the strategies of the great powers competing with each other, and he unknowingly forgot about the small island lord in the north.

But at this moment, another communication wizard came to report the news.

Dange's eyebrows jumped again: "What's the matter?"

The messenger mage immediately told him the answer: "Your Majesty, important battle reports have come from Mira Fortress, and we have found clear evidence that the Fourth Knights of Kao Red Moon are making large-scale movements, and they seem to be heading west. We request Your Majesty to send more troops to support us."

Dange's brows furrowed in a frown, and the anger in his heart surged and almost exploded.

But it only lasted for a moment, and the anger was suppressed: "Damn these rose gardeners! Damn Queen Kao!"

Aaron and Kao are old enemies for thousands of years. Whenever one of them has something wrong, the other will definitely take advantage of the situation.

It was obvious that Kaa came here to cause trouble for him.

Can I ignore it?

Of course not!

Mira Fortress is very important. If it is breached by the Red Moon Knights, Aaron will lose a large area of ​​fertile plains, and even the safety of the capital will be threatened.

On one side are overseas interests, on the other side are domestic threats.

After a difficult weighing, Danger sighed: "It seems that we can't send more troops to Weilan."

Sage Sanchester knew the situation was difficult, so he quietly suggested, "Then give us more weapons."

Danger nodded helplessly: "For now, this is the only way."

(End of this chapter)